A Married Couple

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Last June, the world lost the great documentary pioneer Allan King, renowned for a body of work spanning over 40 years. STF is proud to pay tribute to his career with a special screening of his breakthrough film A MARRIED COUPLE, followed by a conversation with the filmmaker Astra Taylor (EXAMINED LIFE) and film critic Dennis Lim.

“[A MARRIED COUPLE is] quite simply one of the greatest movies I have ever seen.” – Clive Barnes, New York Times

Exploring the emotional devastation of a modern marriage in conflict, this extraordinary and controversial documentary was first released in 1969. The film presents the lives of Billy Edwards, an upwardly mobile advertising copywriter, his wife Antoinette, who craves individuality and fame, and their three-year-old son Bogart. By turn exquisitely painful and hilariously funny, this uniquely intimate portrait of a couple whose marriage is collapsing reveals the deep sense of loneliness that exists at the heart of their relationship, as well as the daily power struggles between them. Directed and produced by Allan King, this compelling cinéma vérité film keeps the audience inextricably involved.

“King creates a drama that, in its utter nakedness, makes John Cassavetes Faces look like early Doris Day. Cameraman Richard Leiterman and Soundman Christian Wangler spent ten weeks capturing 70 hours of totally undirected action. From this King distilled 100 minutes of polished film that shows none of the palsied camera work and uneven sound that plagues most cinéma vérité filming. The emotionally exhausting result achieves the ultimate artifice of the documentarist, the feeling that it was somehow made without a camera.” – Time Magazine, 1969